Larry Thompson

It was unknown whether the Los Angeles Avengers would hear a roar or whisper Sunday in their first Arena Football League home game. Apparently there were plenty of eager pigskin enthusiasts looking for a game. A crowd of 15,928--the largest Los Angeles crowd to attend a home debut of an indoor professional sports team--found its way to Staples Center for the Avengers' exhibition game against the Oklahoma Wranglers.

Soldier of Fortune magazine was negligent in publishing a classified ad that led to the contract killing of a Texas woman and should pay $9.4 million to the victim's family, a federal jury said Thursday. Gary Wayne Black, 18, and Marjorie Eimann, 64, filed the suit seeking $22.5 million from the self-styled "Journal for Professional Adventurers." Sandra Black, Gary Black's mother and Eimann's daughter, was shot to death on Feb. 21, 1985, at her home in Bryan.

The Scene: It's been held only once before, but, hey, no problem. L'Orangerie's second annual champagne-drenched pre-Oscar fete on Friday night was proclaimed by all a "tradition." In any case, it may be the only party held during Oscar-countdown week where there were no speeches, awards or honorees. Once again, Harry Winston jewelers and Relais & Chateaux, the international restaurant and hotel directory, underwrote the evening.

Walt Disney Co. named Dan Adler, a former executive with Creative Artists Agency, as vice president of talent and entertainment development for Disney Interactive. Adler, who directed CAA's move into new media, will hire actors and other creative personnel to work at Disney Interactive, which develops educational and entertainment software for computers. * Rosemary Moore, senior vice president of corporate communications of Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc.

The City Council brushed aside criticism that the city administration's plans to revamp its computer system will cost more than budgeted and won't work well and unanimously approved buying $740,000 worth of new equipment and software.

Five members of the Regency Club talk about the advantages of conducting business and pleasure at the private dining club. LARRY THOMPSON, motion picture and television producer and personal manager: "It's the most un-Hollywood place in Los Angeles. You go to get done what you have to get done. People at the Polo Lounge talk about making deals, and people at the Regency Club make deals.

When FBI agents arrested Robert Philip Hanssen in February, they nabbed one of the most damaging traitors in American history, a turncoat in their ranks who revealed secrets that aided enemies including, perhaps, Osama bin Laden. The most important thing Hanssen revealed, however, is just how inept the nation's leading federal law enforcement agency has become, and how urgent its need for a radical makeover. In a new book, "The Bureau and the Mole," Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David A.

A Justice Department effort to lock up more criminals in prisons instead of halfway houses hit a roadblock Tuesday when a federal judge said inmates already serving time in so-called community correction centers cannot be transferred to regular prisons. The decision could affect more than 100 inmates the Justice Department wants moved out of halfway houses under a new policy to get tougher on nonviolent offenders.

President Bush intends to appoint Larry D. Thompson, an Atlanta lawyer who is African American, to the high-profile post of deputy attorney general, a move designed in part to counter criticism that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is insensitive to race, administration sources said Sunday.